Epiphanies
by zeldazonk
Summary: "She was the most beautiful flower killed by an early frost. She was Satine, and their beautiful bird would sing no longer."


A/N: To Norah, because she feels so low. It's a "let's hope this makes you happy" fic!  
  
Have you ever seen a feather fall from the sky at an unexpected moment and drop at your feet? It drifts slowly, weightless, shimmering a gift from an angel. Or, have you ever seen a falling star? It cascades in a spectral of blinding light and crashes to earth, slowly losing its brightness and beauty. When that star disappears from your sight, your heart sinks.  
  
They carried her backstage, that body that had once been so coveted now only touched by the hands of those who truly loved her. Satine's pitiful corpse, draining its life and warmth with each passing second on the telltale rose-adorned clock ticking away on her mantle, was laid out on a white velvet chaise. But for the glint of lifeless auburn hair, one would have a trying time distinguishing Satine from the fabric, as both were the same shade of ghostly pale.  
  
And slowly, with tears fragmenting their vision, tears that glinted like rainbow-tinted raindrops, they began to prepare her body for burying. In Marie's shaking hands was a hairbrush, and for the last time she ran it through the water-smooth texture of Satine's hair, tears dropping fatly on over-rouged cheeks all the while. Giving a little gasp, she collected the clumps of hair that had fallen, dead and dry as autumn leaves, onto Satine's shoulders and wrapped them in a thick handkerchief. With Harold standing close by, stage makeup smudged with the torrent of uncontrollable grief, she removed the sparkling headpiece, held it to her heart for a moment, and then handed it to him. His knees gave out and with a shuddering sob, Harold buried his face in one of Satine's hanging gowns, tears staining the fragile China silk. The light chain of jewels fell to the floor in a crumble that reverberated throughout the silent Moulin Rouge.  
  
Guests had vanished, leaving only thick creamy programs in their seats as evidence that indeed this show had gone on. Behind heavy red velvet curtains, the stage was an empty semblance of its temporary grandeur; rose petals littered the shining wood but were beginning to crumple with the minutes that passed. Instruments sat unused like ghosts of better times, and those agonizing final moments had been but ten minutes ago.  
  
In Satine's dressing room they gathered. The big-hearted artist. The dark eyed tango dancer and the solemn Nini, who had draped her gaunt form in black. The sensitive musician, glazed over with Absinthe. Chocolat, blue body paint smeared and head bowed. Flawless China Doll, Arabia, Mome Fromage and Petite Princesse, all of whom cried openly and gave pitiful moans for the memory of their Sparkling Diamond, their heroine and savior.  
  
Mechanically, Nini moved to the racks of elaborate gowns and shuffled through them, eyes brimming with tears that she struggled to fight back, and pulled one from the multitudes. "This," she managed to whisper, handing it to Marie and wiping her eyes. "This was always her favorite."  
  
Satine, who had always been too ashamed to wear it because of her position, had never worn the most fragile of silks in the most virginal of white. The bodice was plain and the skirt had no bustle, no fripperies to enchant the men, as costumes were wont to do. Marie took the gown and lightly brushed it to her cheek, inhaling the rose and violet of Satine's perfume, before carefully moving the body to remove the Hindu wedding gown.  
  
All who gathered in the expanse of the dressing room gasped in horror at Satine's condition underneath. Ribs jutted out, breasts had shrunken, skin was a yellowish color. Satine had never let on that she was sick. Their perfect princess had been deteriorating before their eyes and they'd noticed nothing. The mourners felt ill with guilt. She was the most beautiful and fragile flower ruined by an early frost. She was Satine, and their beautiful bird would sing no longer.  
  
"They say this is the city of angels, but all I see are broken wings." Empty stage, empty man, empty words, empty voice. Devoid of all possible emotion, he stumbled aimlessly on crumbled floorboards. Ghosts drifted through the chill of the building, gossamer silk ghosts he could nearly feel float through his body. White-sheeted furniture ghosts, their coverings heavy with dust from ages of silence. Silence grew thick like ivy in the room. Only footsteps reverberated.  
  
He sat at the piano and removed the gray-pink silk covering from its dull white keys. Notes floated easily from his fingers, wafting through ghost- lit air in semblance of song, eerie in its passages of melancholia. They danced dissonantly through flitting bodies of the past, a slow and grief- stricken waltz of life and death. Christian slammed the piano cover shut. Teardrops on keys soon evaporated into phantoms, and they too were left to torment him on future visits.  
  
The sky was dismal gray. It didn't depress him any longer; his life was a monotonous stream of gray and she'd been dead but four months. In streets that had once been gold-tinted with romance in his eyes, dirty, emaciated children ran rampant, their mothers drug-addled whores and their fathers unknown. A bird's egg, tiny and sky-blue, once perfection, was smashed like his heart on soiled ground. No one sang any longer. Always silence. Dreaded silence that cloaked his world like a shroud.  
  
But while looking up to wipe a hazy tear, Christian saw something he hadn't seen since he was a child. A tiny sliver of rainbow through the fog of smoggy clouds sent sudden, unexpected shocks throughout him. And in that rainbow, a thousand epiphanies showered upon him like glitter on the day of their first meeting.  
  
Hope.  
  
FIN 


End file.
